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PROCEEDINGS 



^iiprriiic Court of tl)c Initrb Slotcs, 



AT TUEIR SESSION HELD 



MONUAY, JANUAKY 17, 1870, 



IN RELATION TO THE DEATH OF 



HON. EDWm M. STANTON. 



WASHINGTON : 

GOVERNMENT PRINTING OFFICE. 
1870. 



J 

.SS 1(5 



SUPREME COURT OF THE UNITED STATES. 



JANUAEY 17, 1870. 



Upon the coming in of the Court, the Attorney 
G-eneral addressed them as follows : 

May it please your Honors : 

Since your last adjournment the emblems of public 
mourning have been again displayed in the capital of 
the nation under circumstances which press upon the 
attention of this court with a peculiar and touching 
solemnity. A great man — great by the acknowl- 
edgment alike of those who feared or hated him, and 
of those by whom he was trusted and honored ; a 
lawyer, a statesman, selected and confirmed, though 
not commissioned, as an Associate Justice of the 
Supreme Court of the United States — has passed 
away from among us. Edwin M. Stanton, in the 
maturity of life, with a capacity for public service 
already demonstrated, in the security of established 
fame, seemed to our mortal vision about to enter 
upon a new and long career of honor and usefulness. 
But such was not the will of Heaven: ^' Dis aliter 
visumJ'' 

It has seemed to his brethren of the Bar a fit 
occasion to express their regard for his memory, and 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 



they have charged me with the official and grateful 
duty of presenting to your honors the resolutions 
which have been adopted at their meeting this 
morning. 

Of Mr. Stanton as a lawyer, it is enough to say 
that he had risen to the foremost rank in his profes- 
sion. He had adequate learning, untiring industry, 
a ready and retentive memory, clear comprehension 
of principles, the power of profound and cogent 
I'easoning, and unquestionable integrity ; and he gave 
to the cause of his clients a vigor, energy, and zeah 
which deserved and commanded success. 

But it is not of the lawyer, eminent as he was in 
the science and practice of the law, that men chiefly 
think as they remember him. His service to mankind 
was on a higher and wider field. He was appointed 
Attorney General by Mr. Buchanan, on the 20th of 
December, 18R0, in one of the darkest hours of the 
country's history, when the Union seemed crumbling 
to pieces without an arm raised for its support ; when 
"without" the public counsels "was doubting, and 
within were fears ;" when feebleness and treachery 
were uniting to yield whatever defiant rebellion 
might demand ; and good men everywhere were 
ready to despair of the Republic. For ten weeks of 
that winter of national agony and shame, with 
patriotism that never wavered, and courage that 
never quailed, this true American, happily not wholly 



■^^i 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 



alone, stood manfully at his post, " between the living 
and the dead,'' gave what nerve he could to timid 
and trembling imbecility, and met the secret plotters 
of their country's ruin with an undaunted front, until 
before that resolute presence the demons of treason 
and civil discord appeared in their own shape, as at 
the touch of Ithuriel's spear, and fled baffled and 
howling away. 

His published opinions as Attorney General fill but 
nine pages, but the name that was signed to them 
had in that brief time become known throughout the 
land as the synonym of truth, honor, and fidelit}-. 

Although of a different political party, he was 
called by Mr. Lincoln into his Cabinet in 1862, as 
the Secretary of War. But it was at a time when 
all party divisions had become insignificant, and all 
party ties trivial, compared with those great duties 
which engrossed the thoughts and demanded the care 
of every patriot. He brought to his great trust a 
capacity for labor that seemed inexhaustible ; un- 
flinching courage, indomitable will, patience and 
steady persistence, which no fatigue could weary 
and no mistakes or misfortunes divert ; a trust in the 
people that never faltered, an integrity which corrup- 
tion never dared to approach, and a singleness of 
purpose which nothing could withstand. That pur- 
pose was to crush the rebellion — and woe to that 
man who came, or seemed to come, between that 



6 KDWIN M. STANTON. 

purpotie and its execution ! Coming from civil life, 
I suppose there is no sufficient evidence that he was, 
or ever became, a master of the art of war ; but the 
problem before him was to find those who were, and 
to bring all the resources of the country with un- 
stinted measure to their support. 

We might address him as one of those 

'* Chief of meu. who, through a cloud. 
Not of war only, but detractions rude. 
Guided by faith and matchless fortitude, 
To peace and truth thy glorious way has plowed." 

Undoubtedly he had faults and failings. He was 
said to be despotic and overbearing, and he may 
have been sometimes unjust ; but his work was done 
in a time when there was little chance for delibera- 
tion, and when "the weightier matters of the law" 
left no time for " tithing mint and anise and cummin." 
He felt that the life of the nation was in his hands, 
and, under that fearful responsibility, he could not 
always adjust with delicate hand the balance of 
private rights and wrongs. It is said that his man- 
ners were sometimes discourteous and offensive. 
Who can wonder that that wearied and overburdened 
man, with such pressure on brain and nerve, was 
sometimes irritable and unceremonious in his inter- 
course with shirking officers and peculating con- 
tractors, and the crowd of hungry cormorants and 
interminable bores who perpetually sought access to 
him : and sometimes confounded with such those who 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 



deserved better treatment? But the American people 
knew that he was honest, able, and faithful. He 
never stopped for explanation, or condescended to 
exculpate himself. 

I have thought it one of the highest and finest 
traits of his character, that he bore in grim silence 
all accusations, and stood manfully between his chief 
and popular censure for acts which he had neither 
originated 'nor approved. It was perhaps the highest 
triumph of his official career, and the final proof of 
how justly his confidence in his countrjnnen was 
bestowed, that he conducted and carried through the 
military draft — that severest trial to a free people — 
when the country, in the time of her direst need, 
ceasing to entreat, commands the services of her sons. 
He had his reward ; and, like the President whom he 
served — 

"111 thought, ill feeling, ill report lived through. 
Until he heard the hisses chauge to cheers. 
The taunts to tribute, the abuse to praise, 
And heard them with the same unwavering mind." 

He saw the rebellion crushed and the integrity of the 
nation vindicated. The people, who had learned to 
know that he was a tower of strength in the time of 
civil war, who had felt that their cause would never 
be abandoned or betrayed by him, and to whom his 
presence in office gave a sense of protection and 
security, have hailed with joy the prospect which so 
lately opened of transferring him to a new post of 



EUWIN M. STANTON. 



duty in this tiigh tribunal. They knew that the 
statesman who had found in the Constitution all the 
powers necessary for its own maintenance, would, as 
a jurist, not fail to lind there all the powers needful 
for the protection throughout the entire country of 
that civil liberty which it was ordained to secure. 
But he was already worn out in their service, and 
gave his life for them as truly as any one who ever 
perilled it on the field of battle. 

Mr. Chief Justice, the lesson of this life is a lofty 
one. The time is soon coming when men will recog- 
nize the high natures who, in this period of civil strife, 
have arisen above the ordinary level of mankind, and 
are entitled to their gratitude and honor. Upon those 
towering peaks in the landscape, the eye will no 
longer discern the little inequalities and roughnesses 
of surface. Already upon the canvas of history some 
figures are beginning to emerge. They are not those 
of self-seekers, or of those who were greedy of power 
or place, but of the men who, in the time of public trial 
and public danger, with none but public objects, have 
done much for their country and mankind. Among 
these can his cotemporaries fail to discern — will not 
posterity surely recognize — the lineaments of Edwin 
M. Stanton ? A restored country is his monument. 

•• Notbing can cover his high tame but Heaven ! 
No pyramids set off his memories 
But the eternal substance of his greatness, 
To which I leave him."' 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 9 

1 now submit to your Honors the proceedings of 
the meeting- of the Bar, and make the motion which 
one of the resolutions suggests. 

At a meeting of the members of the Bar of the 
Supreme Court of the United States, held at the 
Court Room, in the Capitol, on the 13th day of 
January, 1870 

Senator Edmunds, of Vermont, was appointed 
chairman, and R. M. Cor wine, of Ohio, secretary. 

On motion. 
The Attorney General, J. M. Carlisle, esq., and 
Hon. Robert S. Hale, were appointed a committee 
to draft and report resolutions, who, at an adjourned 
meeting, on the 17th of January, reported as follows, 
which report was unanimously adopted, viz : 

"Edwin M. Stanton, for many years a leading 
and honored member of this Bar, formerly Attorney 
General of the United States, and Secretary of War 
during the war for the preservation of the Republic, 
recently nominated and confirmed to fill a prospective 
vacancy on the bench of the Supreme Court of the 
United States, distinguished by his professional abil- 
ities and attainments, and still more distinguished and 
endeared to the country he contributed so greatly to 
save, by his energy, patriotism, and integrity, having, 
on the 24th day of December, 18G9, laid down a life 
devoted to the cause of his country and worn out in 



mii'iiniiwm 



10 EDWIN M. STANTON. 



her service, the members of the bar of the Supreme 
Court of the United States, assembled to render 
honor to his memory, as an expression of their 
regard and reverence for his pubUc and private 
virtues, and of his most useful and patriotic career, 
have 

^''Resolved, That we desire to express our profound 
and thorough appreciation of the private worth and 
public merits of Mr. Stanton ; of the loss sustained 
by the national judiciary in his death, and of the 
measureless debt of gratitude due to him from the 
citizens of a country saved from destruction in great 
degree by his untiring labors, large comprehension, 
and unswerving integrity. 

""Resolved, That the Attorney General be requested 
to lay this expression of our feeling before the court, 
and to move that the same be entered upon the min- 
utes of the term. 

''Resohed, That our chairman communicate a copy 
of these proceedings, and of such action as the court 
may take thereon, to the widow and children of our 
deceased brother, with the assurance of our sympathy 
and respect." 

The Chief Justice remarked, in reply : 
The Court unites with the Bar in acknowledging 
the private worth, the professional eminence, and 
the illustrious public services of Mr, Stanton, and in 



EDWIN M. STANTON. 11 

sorrow that the country has been deprived, by his 
premature decease, of the great benefits justly ex- 
pected from his remarkable attainments and abihties 
in tiie new sphere of duty to which he had been 
called. 

We all anticipated from his accession to the bench 
increased strength for the court and most efficient 
aid in its deliberations and decisions. We indulged 
the hope that his health, impaired by oppressive 
anxieties and arduous labors as the head of the 
Department of War, would be fully restored, under 
the influence of the calmer and more regular course 
of this tribunal, and that prolonged life would afford 
him many opportunities of establishing additional 
clamis upon the gratitude and honor of his country 
in the upright performance of judicial duty. 

But Providence has ordered otherwise. He was 
not even permitted to become in fact a member of 
this court. He had hardly been nominated and 
confirmed to fill the vacancy which will occur a few 
days hence, through the prospective resignation of 
our honored brother, Mr. Justice Grier, when death 
entered upon the scene and closed his earthly career. 

Our deepest sympathies are with his family and 
friends in their bereavement. We mourn their 
loss as our own loss, as the loss of the profession 
which he adorned, and of the country which he 
served. 



12 EDWIN M. STANTON. 

The proceedings of the Bar, the address of the 
Attorney General, and this response, will be entered 
upon the minutes, and, as a further mark of respect, 
the court will now adjourn without transacting any 
business. 

The court thereupon adjourned. 



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